Solar Summit Sneak Peek: The Evolution of Solar

Eric Wesoff is Editor-at-Large at Greentech Media. Prior to joining GTM, Eric Wesoff founded Sage Marketing Partners in 2000 to provide sales and marketing-consulting services to venture-capital firms and their portfolio companies in the alternative energy and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Wesoff has become a well-known, respected authority and speaker in these fields.

His expertise covers solar power, fuel cells, biofuels and advanced batteries. His strengths are in market research and analysis, business development and due diligence for investors. He frequently consults for energy startups and Silicon Valley's premier venture capitalists.

If you work in the solar industry and are having some difficulty reaching your colleagues, it's probably because a good portion of them are here in Phoenix at GTM's Solar Summit, taking in the sun as well as the deep flow of information at this event.

Each year, Shayle Kann, SVP of Research at GTM, provides the solar industry equivalent of Mary Meeker's internet trends slide deck -- providing some context for the industry and illuminating the not-so-obvious changes. This year's presentation is called "The Evolution of Solar" -- and we were able to obtain some pre-release pirated copies.

Here's a glimpse of today's action.

Kann will discuss the "first wave" of U.S. solar growth that saw the solar industry grow fifteen-fold in five years.

What's the next wave? Tune in to the livecast.

As for the combination of solar and storage, we are seeing partnerships being made and territories being claimed.

Most of these solar companies and many of these storage companies are attending today's Solar Summit.

The combination of solar and energy storage can improve system economics as incentives and net energy metering policies recede.

If you're in the area, there might be a few open seats. Otherwise, tune in to our live feed.